put on your warpaint
by jaime-lannisters
Summary: so take up your graves and walk— they are the children of heroes and they could be gods or monsters, and the world would struggle to know the difference. i: albusscorpius


**a/n 1. **i guess i just like nextgen. disclaimer for the whole collection, i am not jkr. these tend to be a bit long for drabbles, but they're certainly not one shots. so, uh, have a collection of whatever these are. xx

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albusscorpius — **spiralling down**

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There is alcohol running through his veins and adrenaline sparking his heart, the world spiralling down around him.

He stumbles, falling onto the hard oak wall, before sliding down into a collapsed heap. He sits there, slumped against the wall, in the corner, watching. He's always watching. His eyes are famed beyond compare in his world, but they are much more suited to observing than being observed, he finds, as much as the tabloids may disagree.

Scorpius is talking to Dominique, and her eyes are dark with desire and mischief and Scorpius is leaning into her touch slightly and this fills Albus with a rage that he cannot even begin to comprehend, let alone prevent. He is Antinous wild, with the alcohol burning his veins and filling him with reckless energy, knocking aside his inhibitions. He glows with beauty, his rage as unyielding as his handsome features and eyes that match his Slytherin tie, and god, he is as beautiful as he is terrible.

He lurches to his feet, ignoring the eyebrow that Rose raises to him from across the room as she chatters to Louis — she once drunkenly kissed _James_, so judging his bad life choices should not even be _approaching_ her to-do list, okay — and moves forward through the crowd, clumsily and loudly. His multiple missteps ensure that everyone he passes is either acquainted with one of his flailing limbs, or whatever their conversation partner is drinking, but eventually he makes his way through the crowd and arrives at Scorpius' side.

"Hello," he greets imperiously, ignoring the flash of irritation that graces Dominique's face. She'll get over it, he decides, and even if she doesn't, well, he's got other cousins he likes better. It's not as if anyone in his family is irreplaceable, he thinks bitterly. They've all been cast the same, as children of heroes, and as such, nobody knows them truly, and they are all expendable.

Scorpius gives him a searching look. "What?" Albus asks irritably, shifting his stance so that he's standing ever so slightly between the two blondes, separating them.

"You're drunk," Scorpius states, his tone neither approving or disapproving. Albus swallows, and the sight of this seems to fluster Scorpius slightly, judging from the pink flush at his neck. "Come on, you drunkard," Scorpius says with a long-suffering sigh, slinging an arm around the dark-haired boy's shoulder. "Let's get you out of this lion's den," he continues, barely noticing Dominique's annoyed "bye".

Rose materialises by their side as they're making their way to the exit, and she raises an eyebrow at their positions, but doesn't comment on it. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do," she says with a sardonic smirk, blowing a kiss at Albus as he shoots a half-hearted glare at her. Scorpius shoots her his special smile, one only she and Albus and Louis get to see, and she smiles widely in return. "I'll see you two later, yeah?" she says, and ruffles Al's hair before scampering off to save Louis from his endless gaggle of admirers.

Scorpius manages to drag Al out of the room, and they're halfway to their dorm when suddenly— "your hair is really fucking beautiful, did you know?"

The blonde looks at his friend in surprise. "Er, yeah. It's part of me, of course it's beautiful," he teases. "Got a secret burning love for my hair?"

Albus is looking at Scorpius strangely, in an oddly sober and sincere way for a boy who consumed more than seven bottles of firewhiskey on his own. "Not so much your hair," he mutters, before fixing Scorpius with a look that suggests many things that are not appropriate for Scorpius to imagine his best friend doing, and he squeezes his eyes shut because _goddammit_, but Albus Potter is a beautiful specimen of humankind and his throat goes dry when he opens his eyes to find Albus still staring at him the same way.

"Um," he says, very eloquently, and then Albus has him pressed up against the wall, and he's kissing him, and their bodies are pressed so close together that it's like they've merged and Scorpius isn't sure where he starts and Albus ends, and _they're in the middle of the bloody corridor_ but suddenly Albus is — god, what's he doing with his _tongue_? — and there's nothing in his mind anymore except for green eyes and dark hair and soft, pink lips and the Slytherin tie that Scorpius has in his hand, pulled taut in his attempts to bring the other boy closer.

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**a/n 2.** please don't favourite without reviewing. reviews are always appreciated. xx


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